Peter Sarsgaard is set to co-star alongside Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz in the Pablo Escobar feature Escobar, written and directed by Fernando Leon De Aranoa. Set to begin filming next month, the pic is based on the true story of the unlikely relationship between the infamous drug lord and his polar opposite, the upscale TV host Virginia Vallejo, which was detailed in her novel Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar. Sarsgaard will play DEA agent Neymar. Dean Nichols, Christa Campbell, Ed Cathell, and Lati Grobman are producing. Sarsgaard, repped by WME, can currently be seen on the big screen in The Magnificent Seven and later in Jackie, the Natalie Portman-starrer out December 2. Variety first reported the Escobar casting news.

Jeremy Strong, Chris Chalk, Austin Hébert, have joined the cast of Kathryn Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Project movie along with Ephraim Sykes, Laz Alonso, Nathan Davis Jr., Malcolm David Kelley, Peyton Alex Smith and Leon Thomas III. The crime drama, now in production, was penned by Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty scribe Mark Boal. The film is set against the backdrop of Detroit’s 1967 riots and explores systemic racism in urban Detroit. Bigelow and Boal are producing with Annapurna’s Megan Ellison and Matthew Budman, and Colin Wilson. Greg Shapiro is executive producing.